Texas Gains 2 Congressional Seats, California, New York Lose 1 Each (With Some Thoughts On Texas Redistricting)

April 27th, 2021

The 2020 Census results are out:

Florida and Texas gained House seats while California and New York lost one seat each as a result of population shifts, according to the 2020 census results announced on Monday.

Texas gained two House seats in the census apportionment for a new total of 38 congressional districts, while Florida gained one House seat, bringing its total number of districts to 28. California lost one House seat and will decline to 52 congressional districts, while New York also lost one House seat and will now have 26 congressional districts. Those four states are the nation’s most populous and together provide one-third of the House’s total seats.

A census official noted that if New York had counted 89 more people, the state would not have lost a House seat.

Too bad Andrew Cuomo killed off all those old people before they could be counted.

The population of California stopped growing several years before the coronavirus pandemic, and in 2020 the state lost more residents to outmigration than it gained. Residents have migrated to Texas as well as to neighboring states such as Arizona, Nevada, and Oregon.

Once again, blue states lost population and red states gained population. People flee Democratic governance and its symptomatic poverty, high taxes, crime and disorder. It’s also the first time California has lost a congressional seat ever.

With two new congressional seats to play with, how will Texas Republicans approach redistricting? I am very far indeed from a redistricting guru, but I have a few educated guesses about how they’ll approach things:

  • Obviously, they’ll try to carve out two more Republican districts, but that may prove difficult. Expect a new Metroplex-area suburban/exurban Republican majority district, but don’t be surprised if they have to create another Hispanic majority district for Democrats somewhere.
  • The next-highest priority has to be taking back the two seats lost in 2018, AKA The Year of Beto. Both the 7th (John Culberson losing to Lizzie Fletcher) and the 32nd (Pete Sessions losing to Collin Allred) were typical sleepwalking incumbents caught by end of election cycle demographic shifts, but there’s no reason those districts can’t be redrawn to make them Republican majority districts again. Republican challenger Wesley Hunt only lost by 3% in the 7th in 2020. (Sessions carpetbagged his way into the Waco-based 17th.)
  • Next up would be protecting Republican incumbents whose current districts are starting to get purple. To that end, I would guess that the 2nd District, with Dan Crenshaw, a rising national star regarded as a solid team player (as newly minted congressmen Beth Van Duyne and August Pfluger can attest) in a district that’s only R+5, would be the top candidate for shoring up. Van Duyne’s 24th (R+2) and Chip Roy’s 21st (R+5) would be next. John Carter’s 31st (R+6) is starting to get purple as well, but since he’s 79, he may not get as much consideration as other incumbents. Michael McCaul’s 10th (R+5) would be another candidate, but as one of the richest incumbents, there might be sentiment that he can stand fast without much additional help. Van Taylor’s 3rd (R+6) looks like a candidate on paper, but neither he nor previous Republican incumbent Sam Johnson ever won by less than 10 points.
  • A separate issue than the above, due to different dynamics, is what to do about the 23rd. The only true swing district in Texas over the last decade is currently held by Republican Tony Gonzalez, who defeated Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones by 4% in 2020. Despite having a giant target on his back every time, Republican Will Hurd held the seat for three cycles before retiring despite never breaking 50%. The fate of the 23rd is highly dependent on whether they decide to carve out another majority Hispanic Democratic district for San Antonio, or whether they want to…
  • Make a play for the Rio Grande Valley? One of the more surprising results of 2020 was that Republicans made significant inroads into the Valley, including President Donald Trump winning Democrat Henry Cueller’s 28th outright. Part of this is due to Trump’s increasing popularity among Hispanics, but the Texas Republican Party has been pouring significant resources into the Valley. Combined with Biden’s border crisis, all this adds up to an opportunity to pick up one or more seats through redistricting. Michael Cloud’s adjacent 27th is looking pretty safe, so the temptation will be to turn one or more of the 28th, Vicente Gonzalez’s 15th (D+3) and/or Filemon Vela Jr.’s 34th (D+5) into competitive swing districts.
  • Another issue will be what the hell to do with Austin, the blue tumor in the heart of red Texas. One driving rationale for the shape of the 35th district (running from Austin down I-35 to San Antonio) was trying to knock off Democratic incumbent Lloyd Doggett by forcing him to face off against a San Antonio-based Hispanic Democrat. That failed, and Doggett won handily. It’s going to be mighty tempting for Republicans to throw in the towel and fashion a liberal urban core district for Austin to free up redder suburban areas to shore up Republican incumbents.
  • I can see one approach solution that solves a lot of those problems: an urban Austin district, a new majority Hispanic district near San Antonio, and a new majority Hispanic district huddling the Rio Grande Valley, reinforcing the 23rd and turning two of the 15th, 28th and 34th into majority Republican districts. But the fact it is obvious means that it probably won’t come to pass, with the likely result a more sophisticated (i.e., gerrymandered) solution.

    Texas Sales Tax Prep Weekend Snuck Up On Me This Year

    April 26th, 2021

    Today is the last day:

    These emergency preparation supplies qualify for tax exemption if purchased for a sales price:

  • Less than $3000
    • Portable generators
  • Less than $300
    • Emergency ladders
    • Hurricane shutters
  • Less than $75
    • Axes
    • Batteries, single or multipack (AAA cell, AA cell, C cell, D cell, 6 volt or 9 volt)
    • Can openers – nonelectric
    • Carbon monoxide detectors
    • Coolers and ice chests for food storage – nonelectric
    • Fire extinguishers
    • First aid kits
    • Fuel containers
    • Ground anchor systems and tie-down kits
    • Hatchets
    • Ice products – reusable and artificial
    • Light sources – portable self-powered (including battery operated) Examples of items include: candles, flashlights and lanterns
    • Mobile telephone batteries and mobile telephone chargers
    • Radios – portable self-powered (including battery operated) – includes two-way and weather band radios
    • Smoke detectors
    • Tarps and other plastic sheeting
  • The Comptroller page notes that online sales count, so I’ve thrown some Amazon links up from my cheap prepper’s guide for surviving cold weather.

    Speaking of axes, Dwight put up a video by a woodcraft guy who reviews axes, so some of those videos might be worth watching if you’re looking for an axe. He seems to favor the Gransfors Bruks Small Forest Axe, which, at $249, doesn’t qualify for the sales tax holiday, and is probably too pricey for someone who isn’t going to be doing a lot of woodcrafting…

    Austin City Council Continues Assault On APD

    April 25th, 2021

    It’s obvious that the current Austin City Council hates the Austin Police Department, and will do anything they think the can get away with to strip it of money and power. The most recent example: They’re stripping 911 funding from the police to hand it over to a newly created department:

    In continuing to restructure the Austin Police Department, the City Council on Thursday voted to move 911 communications and several other services out of police control and into other city departments.

    The total funding to be transferred out of the Police Department’s budget will be about $33.3 million — much of it due to 284.5 full-time positions moving to other city departments.

    The decision builds on the council’s work during last year’s budget process when it cut or reallocated $150 million from the Police Department’s budget — one-third of the entire budget. The money removed Thursday came from funds that were set aside to explore shifting roles assigned to police to other city departments.

    Why strip money from a functioning 911 dispatch system? Obviously, because the current employees support the police department, and lack of control over it means it can’t be staffed with leftwing cronies, making it much harder to rake off the graft and embezzlement. The “efficiencies” the Austin City Council claims the move to an “Emergency Communications Department” will bring is efficiently siphoning taxpayer money from the causes for which it is earmarked and into the hands of the hard left. But don’t think the crazy stops there:

    Thursday’s vote followed a presentation earlier in the week from a community task force assembled by City Manager Spencer Cronk’s office to consider ways to improve public safety.

    The recommendations included removing various line items in the Police Department’s budget and investing them in low-income communities through things such as health care access, food, housing and sex worker outreach services.

    Some of the more extreme recommendations came from a four-person working group over patrol and surveillance. They included removing all deadly firearms from police officers and putting an end to new cadet classes. By eliminating neighborhood-based policing, the working group said the city would save $210 million that could be reinvested in communities of color.

    “Any City Council member who supports that should be fired,” [Austin Police Association President Ken] Casady said. “It’s crazy town. Just by reading this one recommendation this committee has lost all credibility.”

    Removing firearms from police and giving money to whores: Your Austin City Council at work.

    NC Lt. Governor Isn’t Having Any Of This Voter Suppression Nonsense

    April 24th, 2021

    North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson appeared at the House Committee meeting on Voting Reform, and he’s noting having any of this “voter suppression” nonsense in relation to Georgia’s election reform law:

    Am I to believe that black Americans, who have overcome the atrocities of slavery, who are victorious in the civil rights movement, and now sit in the highest levels of this government, could not figure out how to get a free ID to secure their votes?

    Just a few days ago, the Vice President went to the very place that I mentioned, the Woolworth counter in Greensboro, but you know who wasn’t there you know who wasn’t invited? My good friend Clarence Henderson, who is a civil rights icon. He sat at that counter and endured the suffering and pain to make sure that black voices were heard. And why was he left out? Because he’s of a different political persuasion.

    As usual, Robinson speaks truth. The Clarence Henderson who participated in the Greensboro sit-ins is “a staunch conservative who supports Donald Trump and the Republican party now. He has been an outspoken supporter of the President since the 2016 campaign.”

    Then he gets down to what Democrats are actually trying to do:

    The goal of some individuals in government is not to hear the voices of black Americans at all, it’s to hear the voices that fit their narratives and ultimately help keep power with one group. And that’s what this is all about, it’s about power. Just look at HR-1. It’s despicable. The entire thing is designed to keep one party in power and ensure they stay there indefinitely. They plan to do that by taking away the rights of states given by the constitution to govern their own elections. To mandate a partisan wish list that comes down from that federal government. Some of these items include using government dollars to fund campaigns in order to give an advantage to one party, mandating that felons are allowed to vote, including illegal immigrants on voter rolls, and of course trying to ban states from having voter ID.

    (Hat tip: Byron Preston via Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

    LinkSwarm For April 23, 2021

    April 23rd, 2021

    Greetings, and welcome to another super-late Friday LinkSwarm! Been a busy week at the day job. I hope that next week is less frantic, but I also have to start working on my taxes…
    
    

  • Father pulls daughter out of tony private Brearley school and and his letter why is blistering:

    It cannot be stated strongly enough that Brearley’s obsession with race must stop. It should be abundantly clear to any thinking parent that Brearley has completely lost its way. The administration and the Board of Trustees have displayed a cowardly and appalling lack of leadership by appeasing an anti-intellectual, illiberal mob, and then allowing the school to be captured by that same mob. What follows are my own personal views on Brearley’s antiracism initiatives, but these are just a handful of the criticisms that I know other parents have expressed.

    I object to the view that I should be judged by the color of my skin. I cannot tolerate a school that not only judges my daughter by the color of her skin, but encourages and instructs her to prejudge others by theirs. By viewing every element of education, every aspect of history, and every facet of society through the lens of skin color and race, we are desecrating the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and utterly violating the movement for which such civil rights leaders believed, fought, and died.

    I object to the charge of systemic racism in this country, and at our school. Systemic racism, properly understood, is segregated schools and separate lunch counters. It is the interning of Japanese and the exterminating of Jews. Systemic racism is unequivocally not a small number of isolated incidences over a period of decades. Ask any girl, of any race, if they have ever experienced insults from friends, have ever felt slighted by teachers or have ever suffered the occasional injustice from a school at which they have spent up to 13 years of their life, and you are bound to hear grievances, some petty, some not. We have not had systemic racism against Blacks in this country since the civil rights reforms of the 1960s, a period of more than 50 years. To state otherwise is a flat-out misrepresentation of our country’s history and adds no understanding to any of today’s societal issues. If anything, longstanding and widespread policies such as affirmative action, point in precisely the opposite direction.

    I object to a definition of systemic racism, apparently supported by Brearley, that any educational, professional, or societal outcome where Blacks are underrepresented is prima facie evidence of the aforementioned systemic racism, or of white supremacy and oppression. Facile and unsupported beliefs such as these are the polar opposite to the intellectual and scientific truth for which Brearley claims to stand. Furthermore, I call bullshit on Brearley’s oft-stated assertion that the school welcomes and encourages the truly difficult and uncomfortable conversations regarding race and the roots of racial discrepancies.

    I object to the idea that Blacks are unable to succeed in this country without aid from government or from whites. Brearley, by adopting critical race theory, is advocating the abhorrent viewpoint that Blacks should forever be regarded as helpless victims, and are incapable of success regardless of their skills, talents, or hard work. What Brearley is teaching our children is precisely the true and correct definition of racism.

    I object to mandatory anti-racism training for parents, especially when presented by the rent-seeking charlatans of Pollyanna. These sessions, in both their content and delivery, are so sophomoric and simplistic, so unsophisticated and inane, that I would be embarrassed if they were taught to Brearley kindergarteners. They are an insult to parents and unbecoming of any educational institution, let alone one of Brearley’s caliber.

    I object to Brearley’s vacuous, inappropriate, and fanatical use of words such as “equity,” “diversity” and “inclusiveness.” If Brearley’s administration was truly concerned about so-called “equity,” it would be discussing the cessation of admissions preferences for legacies, siblings, and those families with especially deep pockets. If the administration was genuinely serious about “diversity,” it would not insist on the indoctrination of its students, and their families, to a single mindset, most reminiscent of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Instead, the school would foster an environment of intellectual openness and freedom of thought. And if Brearley really cared about “inclusiveness,” the school would return to the concepts encapsulated in the motto “One Brearley,” instead of teaching the extraordinarily divisive idea that there are only, and always, two groups in this country: victims and oppressors.

    l object to Brearley’s advocacy for groups and movements such as Black Lives Matter, a Marxist, anti family, heterophobic, anti-Asian and anti-Semitic organization that neither speaks for the majority of the Black community in this country, nor in any way, shape or form, represents their best interests.

    I object to, as we have been told time and time again over the past year, that the school’s first priority is the safety of our children. For goodness sake, Brearley is a school, not a hospital! The number one priority of a school has always been, and always will be, education. Brearley’s misguided priorities exemplify both the safety culture and “cover-your-ass” culture that together have proved so toxic to our society and have so damaged the mental health and resiliency of two generations of children, and counting.

    I object to the gutting of the history, civics, and classical literature curriculums. I object to the censorship of books that have been taught for generations because they contain dated language potentially offensive to the thin-skinned and hypersensitive (something that has already happened in my daughter’s 4th grade class). I object to the lowering of standards for the admission of students and for the hiring of teachers. I object to the erosion of rigor in classwork and the escalation of grade inflation. Any parent with eyes open can foresee these inevitabilities should antiracism initiatives be allowed to persist.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • “Facebook Bigwig Donated Millions to Black Lives Matter. Then The Company Censored Criticism of BLM’s Controversial Founder.” Try to contain your shocked face.

    Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz has poured over $5 million into a network of nonprofits run by Black Lives Matter leader Patrisse Cullors, according to financial disclosure records, raising questions about whether this relationship played a role in the company’s decision to censor unflattering news articles about the activist last week.

    The social media giant blocked its users from posting links to a New York Post story that revealed Cullors, a self-described Marxist, spent $3.2 million on high-end real estate as her Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation raked in millions in donations.

    Facebook said the reporting violated its “privacy and personal information policy.” The Post argued that the decision was “so arbitrary as to be laughable” and noted that the media routinely report on real estate purchases by other celebrities and political figures without facing social media censorship.

  • “Democrat Mayor, BLM Activist Hit With 11 Child Sex Felony Charges.””Robert Jacob, progressive former mayor of Sebastopol in Sonoma County, Northern California, was arrested for ‘five felony and one misdemeanor sexual assault charges against a minor,’ according to a statement from the Sebastopol Police Department.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green.)
  • “The Media Lied Repeatedly About Officer Brian Sicknick’s Death. And They Just Got Caught.”

    It was crucial for liberal sectors of the media to invent and disseminate a harrowing lie about how Officer Brian Sicknick died. That is because he is the only one they could claim was killed by pro-Trump protesters at the January 6 riot at the Capitol.

    So The New York Times on January 8 published an emotionally gut-wrenching but complete fiction that never had any evidence — that Officer Sicknick’s skull was savagely bashed in with a fire extinguisher by a pro-Trump mob until he died — and, just like the now-discredited Russian bounty story also unveiled by that same paper, cable outlets and other media platforms repeated this lie over and over in the most emotionally manipulative way possible….

    As I detailed over and over when examining this story, there were so many reasons to doubt this storyline from the start. Nobody on the record claimed it happened. The autopsy found no blunt trauma to the head. Sicknick’s own family kept urging the press to stop spreading this story because he called them the night of January 6 and told them he was fine — obviously inconsistent with the media’s claim that he died by having his skull bashed in — and his own mother kept saying that she believed he died of a stroke.

    But the gruesome story of Sicknick’s “murder” was too valuable to allow any questioning. It was weaponized over and over to depict the pro-Trump mob not as just violent but barbaric and murderous, because if Sicknick weren’t murdered by them, then nobody was (without Sicknick, the only ones killed were four pro-Trump supporters: two who died of a heart attack, one from an amphetamine overdose, and the other, Ashli Babbitt, who was shot point blank in the neck by Capitol Police despite being unarmed). So crucial was this fairy tale about Sicknick that it made its way into the official record of President Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate, and they had Joe Biden himself recite from the script, even as clear facts mounted proving it was untrue.

  • “Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey may have just handed over the city to rioters as he made it clear that the overarching leftist narrative surrounding the Derek Chauvin trial is the real story, regardless of the facts.”
  • “Corporations that have criticized election reform — including Apple, American Airlines, and Uber — have received over $2 billion in Texas public dollars collectively.”

    The information was compiled by the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), a think-tank and supporter of Texas’ election reform legislation.

    That total is likely even higher due to undisclosed subsidy amounts for multiple companies.

    Most of the public funds come from state and local subsidies, with the single biggest beneficiary being Berkshire Hathaway, run by Warren Buffett, which has pulled in $802 million for its subsidiary Nebraska Furniture Mart.

    (Hat tip: Holly Hansen.)

  • Speaking of TPPF: he idea that expanding Medicaid by embracing ObamaCare is bunk:

    But that’s not the experience in states that have expanded Medicaid.

    New York, one of the earliest and most earnest adopters of Medicaid expansion, has seen Medicaid enrollment explode in the last decade and is now dealing with a $6 billion budget shortfall.

    In California, lawmakers cut money from education just to stay afloat as they addressed an astonishing $54 billion deficit. The new demands of Medicaid expansion placed on the state’s budget mean either more cuts to critical programs or ballooning deficits.

    Enrollment of able-bodied adults in the California program ended up 278% over official projections, with actual cost hitting nearly $44 billion instead of a projected $11.6 billion over a two-and-a-half year period. One out of every three people in California are now on Medicaid.

    It’s not just big blue states. Ohio, thanks to Medicaid expansion, now allots a full 38 percent of its state budget to Medicaid spending. It was just 21 percent prior to expansion in 2009.

    This is true in Indiana as well, where the share of the state budget eaten up by Medicaid has doubled from 18 percent to 35 percent since 2000. On average, states that expanded were about 50 percent over enrollment and spending projections.

    States see dramatic increases in spending whenever Medicaid is expanded. This problem is even worse now because there is a federal prohibition against removing any enrollees from the program — in place until the COVID-19 emergency expires. States are handcuffed indefinitely.

    Texas can’t ignore these outcomes.

  • What. The. Hell? “The Postal Service is running a ‘covert operations program‘ that monitors Americans’ social media posts.” Who they hell approved that bright idea and can we get them fired? (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • “That Maskless Texan Apocalypse Still Hasn’t Arrived“:

    Texas’s statewide mask mandate ended March 9. The day before, Texas had 5,119 new cases of COVID-19, and the seven-day average for new cases was 3,971. On that day, the state had 126,404 active cases of COVID-19. As of March 9, the seven-day average for new deaths was 104.

    Yesterday, the state had 3,859 new cases, and the seven-day average for daily new cases is 3,057. The state had 93,430 active cases. The seven-day average for new deaths was 54. As I noted in late March and early April, the end of the statewide mask mandate did not generate a surge in cases or deaths, and shouldn’t have been reflexively denounced as “Neanderthal thinking” by President Biden.

  • Tokyo Olympics bans taking a knee. “The IOC’s Rule 50 forbids any kind of ‘demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda’ in venues and any other Olympic area and the Games body concluded the rule should be maintained following an athlete consultation.”
  • Another day, another professor busted for lying about receiving money from communist China, in this case mathematics professor Mingqing Xiao of Southern Illinois University – Carbondale. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Why China won’t overtake the U.S.: Demographics:

    Partly thanks to their crackpot one-child policy (one child per family) that was implemented in the late 1970s in order to limit China’s population growth, the ChiComs have a serious demographics problem on their hands, too. And the one-child policy exacerbated another demographics problem:

    The one-child policy produced consequences beyond the goal of reducing population growth. Most notably, the country’s overall sex ratio became skewed toward males—roughly between 3 and 4 percent more males than females. Traditionally, male children (especially firstborn) have been preferred—particularly in rural areas—as sons inherit the family name and property and are responsible for the care of elderly parents. When most families were restricted to one child, having a girl became highly undesirable, resulting in a rise in abortions of female fetuses (made possible after ultrasound sex determination became available), increases in the number of female children who were placed in orphanages or were abandoned, and even infanticide of baby girls.

    The combined result has been an aging population and a declining birth rate, as well as a gender imbalance (approximately 30 million more men than women looking for marriage partners), which resulted in the implementation of the two-child policy in 2016 (and recent recommendations from the People’s Bank of China – the Chinese central bank – to drop the limit altogether). China’s birth rate per 1000 people has decreased from 46 births in 1950 to just over 11 births in 2021.

  • Finally! “UK Parliament declares China’s treatment of Uyghurs a genocide.” Now we’ll see what difference that makes in foreign and economic policy, if any…
  • Sinema, Kelly Call on Administration to Help Address Crisis at the Arizona Border, Fund National Guard Deployment.” “There is a crisis at the southern border… As such, we request you reimburse the state of Arizona for the deployment the Governor announced yesterday to support border security and continue to increase DHS personnel who can further assist with the processing of migrants, securing the border, and executing important security missions.” Both Kelly and Sinema are Democrats.
  • Great great grandson of slaves isn’t having any of this condescending “reparations” garbage:

    At the age of 8, my great-great-grandfather, Silas Burgess, arrived in America shackled in the belly of a slave ship and was sold on an auction block in Charleston, South Carolina, to the Burgess Plantation. He escaped through the Underground Railroad and saved up enough money to purchase a 102-acre farm, where he worked through tremendous challenges to live a prosperous, productive life.

    My grandfather, Oscar Kirby, served our country in World War I and was the first member of my family to get a traditional education. My father, Clarence Burgess Owens Sr., fought for democracy abroad in World War II. He was undeterred by the Jim Crow South that denied him a post-graduate education and built a successful legacy as a professor, researcher and entrepreneur.

    I grew up in the 1960s Deep South during the days of the Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow and segregation. I was one of the first four Black athletes recruited to play football at the University of Miami and the third Black student to receive a scholarship for my education. Now, I am humbled to represent Utah’s 4th Congressional District in the U.S. Congress.

    This intergenerational progress represents the common thread of self-worth that allowed each of my ancestors to see themselves as victors instead of victims. I think my great-great-grandpa Silas would agree that reparations are not the way to right our country’s wrongs.

    It goes without saying that Rep. Owens is a Republican…

  • Related: Glenn Loury makes the case for black patriotism:

    There is a fashionable standoffishness characteristic of much elite thinking about blacks’ relationship to America—as exemplified, for instance, by the New York Times’s 1619 Project. Does this posture serve the interests, rightly understood, of black Americans? I think that it does not.

    Indeed, a case can be made that the correct narrative to adopt today is one of unabashed black patriotism—a forthright embrace of American nationalism by black people. Black Americans’ birthright citizenship in what is arguably history’s greatest republic is an inheritance of immense value. My answer for black Americans to Frederick Douglass’s famous question—“Whose Fourth of July?”—is, “Ours!”

    Is this a venal, immoral, and rapacious bandit-society of plundering white supremacists, founded in genocide and slavery and propelled by capitalist greed, or a good country that affords boundless opportunity to all fortunate enough to enjoy the privileges and bear the responsibilities of citizenship? Of course, there is some warrant in the historical record for both sentiments, but the weight of the evidence overwhelmingly favors the latter. The founding of the United States of America was a world-historic event by means of which Enlightenment ideals about the rights of individual persons and the legitimacy of state power were instantiated for the first time in real institutions.

    African slavery flourished at the time of the Founding, true enough. And yet, within a century of the Founding, slavery was gone and people who had been chattel became citizens of the United States of America. Not equal citizens, not at first. That took another century. But African-descended Americans became, in the fullness of time, equal citizens of this republic.

    Our democracy, flawed as it most surely is, nevertheless became a beacon to billions of people throughout what came to be known as the “free world.” We fought fascism in the Pacific and in Europe and thereby helped to save the world. We faced down, under the threat of nuclear annihilation, the horror that was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Moreover, we have witnessed here in America, since the end of the Civil War, the greatest transformation in the status of a serfdom people (which is, in effect, what blacks became after emancipation) to be found anywhere in world history.

  • Planned Parenthood finally admits that founder Margaret Sanger was a racist
  • Zaire hyperinflates their currency. People stop using it. Zaire introduce a new currency. People start using the old currency, simply because they’re not printing it anymore.
  • He, you know that Islamist insurgency in Mozambique I talked about earlier this month? Well, evidently they’re now beheading children.
  • “The NBA has suffered another ratings disaster, with ABC falling 45 percent since the 2011-12 season, while TNT was down 40 percent, and ESPN was off 20 percent.”
  • “Woman who lost partner in crossbow attack wants ‘medieval’ weapon regulated.” Can Pointy Stick Control be far behind?
  • Important safety tip: Don’t buy crappy ammo.
  • NSFW perspective:

  • Florida man and woman try to have wedding at palatial house. Tiny problem: They didn’t own it and hadn’t rented it.
  • Godzilla Shark fossil found in Mexico.
  • Speaking of Godzilla, here’s my review of Godzilla vs. Kong.
  • “BLM Founder Calls For Abolishing Police In All The Areas Where She Doesn’t Live.”
  • Not Billy Joel fans:

  • Why Does The Dallas City Council Want Illegal Aliens On Their Commissions?

    April 22nd, 2021

    Here’s yet another crazy indicator of America sliding toward the abyss:

    Before the Texas Legislature receives its census data and starts redrawing state voting maps, Dallas City Council is asking local citizens to eliminate the requirement of being a taxpayer or a registered voter to be on city boards and commissions—including the one that will redraw city council districts.

    On February 10, by a vote of 10-5, the Dallas City Council decided to put two proposed amendments to the city charter on the May 1 ballot.

    Proposition A, if approved by voters, would eliminate the requirement that members of city boards or commissions, created by the city charter, be “registered or qualified to vote.” Doing so would allow city council members to nominate noncitizens to these positions.

    In response to a question from Councilmember Cara Mendelsohn, Liz Cedillo-Pereira, Dallas’ chief of equity and inclusion, said 25 percent of the city’s population are immigrants, and to her knowledge, “approximately 70 percent or so” of those immigrants are noncitizens.

    Just having a “chief of equity and inclusion” is already a sign that the social justice rot has set in and taxpayer dollars are already being raked off for the far left.

    According to City Attorney Chris Caso, Proposition A would affect the city planning commission, the civil service board, the park board, and the redistricting commission (which is charged with redrawing the city’s voting precincts).

    “I know Councilmember [Jaime] Resendez said that he has somebody that he would like to consider that this would affect,” Mendelsohn said at the time. Resendez, who put forward the motion for both propositions, didn’t deny it.

    So the entire point of putting illegal aliens in positions of power is to reward cronies? Imagine my shock.

    Just letting illegal aliens into the country in hopes of harvesting their illegal votes is evidently no longer enough for the victimhood identity politics left. Now we have to start giving the leftwing activists among them sinecures from which to wage social justice against actual citizens.

    L.A. Homeless Injunction: Something For Everyone To Hate

    April 21st, 2021

    Federal District Judge David O. Carter has issued a preliminary injunction in a really interesting ruling that has something in it to offend everyone:

    U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter issued a preliminary injunction Tuesday ordering the city and county of Los Angeles to ensure that every homeless person living in the notorious Skid Row district has housing by October 18 this year.

    The Los Angeles Times reported:

    Judge David O. Carter granted a preliminary injunction sought by the plaintiffs in the case last week and now is telling the city and county that they must find single women and unaccompanied children on skid row a place to stay within 90 days, followed by helping families within 120 days and finally, by Oct. 18, offering every homeless person on skid row housing or shelter.

    “Los Angeles has lost its parks, beaches, schools, sidewalks, and highway systems due to the inaction of city and county officials who have left our homeless citizens with no other place to turn,” Carter wrote in a 110-page brief laced with quotes from Abraham Lincoln and an extensive history of how skid row was first created.

    Elsewhere in the decision, the Judge Carter — a Bill Clinton appointee — cited claims of “systemic racism,” and argued that homelessness is partly a result of historical racial discrimination.

    In an unusually complex set of instructions, Judge Carter also ordered $1 billion earmarked by the city for spending on the homeless, announced Monday evening as part of L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti’s “Justice Budget,” to be placed in an escrow account. He also ordered a 90-day audit of city and county spending on the homeless, and a 30-day “audit of any funds committed to mental health (MH) and substance use disorder (SUD) treatment.”

    The full opinion is here.

    Pluses:

  • Judge Carter is right about skid row being a long-standing disgrace. In the 50s and 60s, Los Angeles forced the closure of numerous dilapidated Skid Row residential buildings, including SRO hotels, resulting in the former residents becoming homeless. That, and the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill in the late 1960s, plus the explosion of illegal drug use, laid the groundwork for the gigantic, sprawling Skid Row of today.
  • The 30 and 90 day audits of homeless program spending are a great idea, and should be conducted in any city that has both: A.) Big spending on homelessness, and B.) A growing homeless problem despite/because of that increased spending. How much of that money is going directly into the pockets of “activists” and “homeless advocates”? I’m looking at you, Austin.
  • Likewise the halt to spending from that $1 billion slush fund account. Just where is all that money going?
  • “Los Angeles has lost its parks, beaches, schools, sidewalks, and highway systems due to the inaction of city and county officials who have left our homeless citizens with no other place to turn.” Mostly true, but the homelessness that plagues Los Angeles is due not to government inaction, but government action in promulgating policies and regulations, both those designed to limit and discourage private sector housing that would otherwise meet the demand for housing (see: slums and SROs), and those designed to lure sturdy beggars, transients, drug addicts and the mentally ill to the area (California’s generous welfare state policies and the need to feed the Homeless Industrial Complex). Plus aggressive policing of the homeless has not been tried and failed, it’s been declared difficult and left untried.
  • Minuses:

  • Critical Race Theory is garbage, and using “racism” as a justification for the above infects the entire decision with clearly unconstitutional concerns.
  • There’s a saying that for any question that begins “Can a federal judge…” the answer is always “Yes.” (Though I should note that Carter is a District Judge for the Central District of California, not the higher Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.) But a federal judge can no more conjure material goods out of the air than King Canute could control the tides. If you declare that every homeless person has a “right” to housing, you guarantee a lot more people will become homeless to enjoy the free ride. This is what previous generations understood as “moral hazard.”
  • I suspect that the “L.A. Alliance for Human Rights” doesn’t actually want to solve the problem of homelessness, they just want a bigger cut of the Homeless Industrial Complex pie.
  • Walter Mondale, RIP

    April 20th, 2021

    Walter Mondale, Jimmy Carter’s Vice President and the Democratic Party’s Presidential nominee in 1984, has died at age 93.

    It goes without saying that Mondale was wrong about just about everything, with the possible exception of the problems of budget deficits. In many ways Mondale, tied to Carter malaise, redolent of old-style union boss politics and possessing the charisma of a can of generic beets, made a perfect foil for Ronald Reagan. Mondale even promised to raise taxes! All of which led to Reagan winning 49 states in 1984.

    (Could rival Gary Hart have done better? Slightly. I could see him winning Minnesota, Colorado and Massachusetts.)

    In Mondale’s favor was that I never remember him embarrassing the Carter Administration (Carter was quite capable of that on his own), and he seems to have been well-regarded by staffers and people who worked with him.

    I couldn’t find either of the Saturday Night Lives bits with Mondale I remembered (“What were you thinking?” for the tax hike and “Thanks a lot, Mr. Thirteen Electoral Votes!”) on YouTube. However, I did find a clip of a pre-SNL Dennis Miller on Letterman doing a bit about Mondale’s defeat.

    Follow-Up: Triple Murder Suspect Captured

    April 19th, 2021

    In a followup to yeterday’s story, Stephen Nicholas Broderick, the ex-Travis County Sheriff’s deputy wanted for murdering three people, was arrested.

    Authorities have arrested the former law officer wanted in the shooting that left three people dead and launched a massive manhunt.

    Stephen Nicholas Broderick, 41, was arrested Monday morning around 7:30 a.m. without incident approximately 20 hours after the shooting, Manor Police confirmed. They did say Broderick had a pistol at the time of his arrest, but no shots were fired.

    Broderick was found between Manor and Elgin on Old Kimbro Road just south of Highway 290 after at least two 911 calls reporting a suspicious person. The Travis County Sheriff’s Office took the lead with the arrest with Manor Police assisting.

    (Hat tip: Dwight.)

    The Carpetbagger In TX-06

    April 19th, 2021

    On May 1st, voters in the Texas Sixth U.S. Congressional District, a suburban Metroplex district that runs from Arlington down to Corsicana, go to the polls to fill the seat vacated by late Republican Representative Ron Wright, who died February 7. It’s a Republican-leaning district that’s recently gotten more purple, and there are a bunch of candidates from both parties (plus a Libertarian and an Independent) running for the seat.

    I haven’t paid close attention to the race, but one name has popped up a few times in my Twitter feed, that of Republican candidate “Big Dan” Rodimer, who’s running “More Texan Than Though” ad campaigns like this:

    Wow, sure was impressive how that guy who’s face we never saw rode that bull! One tiny problem, though: Rodimer ran for a U.S. Congressional seat last year…in Nevada:

    A Republican former professional wrestler is district-hopping in hopes of winning a U.S. House seat — and has apparently changed his personality as he tries to make those congressional dreams a reality.

    Dan Rodimer won the GOP nomination in Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District in November 2020. He went on to lose to Democratic Rep. Susie Lee by a 3-point margin in the suburban Las Vegas-based seat.

    A little more than four months later, he’s back, this time running in a special election in a Dallas-based seat more than 1,200 miles away — and he’s almost unrecognizable from his previously failed bid.

    In his Nevada race, Rodimer ran ads painting himself as a clean-cut family man, wearing a collared shirt and seated on a couch with his wife and five children.

    In the ad, he was defending himself from reports that he had been accused of assault three times between 2010 and 2013. According to a report from the Associated Press in October 2019, Rodimer was accused of punching men “at or outside of nightclubs.”

    Now, Rodimer is back and running in a special election in Texas’ 6th Congressional District — a Dallas-based House seat left vacant after Rep. Ron Wright died following a COVID-19 diagnosis.

    And Rodimer looks like a totally different person, donning a cowboy hat and positioning himself as a rodeo bull rider with a Texas accent.

    American Independent is a lefty source, which explains the bad writing, repetition (can you tell me whether the district is Dallas-based?) and sloppy errors (Rodimer won his Nevada primary June 9, not in November), but the basic outline of facts is correct. Rodimer himself even mentions his Nevada run in his bio. “Dan Rodimer lived in Houston, Texas and worked as a home builder. He owned a house in Galveston and has always thought of Texas as his true home.” So the question is: Was his Nevada bid a carpetbagger bid, or is his Texas bid one now?

    I asked Rodimer exactly when he moved to Texas on both his campaign email address and his Twitter account, and have not received a reply.

    Issue-wise, I have have no problems with Rodimer, but I do have issue with his carpetbagger bid and how thickly he spackles on his Texas persona.

    There are ten other Republican candidates running in the TX-06 field. I suspect more than one of them are acceptable conservative Republican candidates.